Knowledge and attitudes towards baby-led-weaning by health professionals and parents: A cross-sectional study

Baby-led-weaning (BLW) is a novel model of complementary feeding. Although there is little scientific evidence to support the suitability or superiority of this complementary feeding model, BLW is followed by many families today. The aim was to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of a group of parents and health professionals regarding BLW in Spain.

This research was designed as a cross-sectional study in a sample of 502 parents and 364 health professionals. Two questionnaires generated and disseminated through Google forms were used. The differences between groups of professionals were analyzed using the Chi-Square test.

92.3% of professionals and 93.4% of parents knew about BLW. They recommend BLW "always" in 39.8% and 69.3% of the cases, and "sometimes" in 49.7% and 24.9%, respectively. Of the health professionals, 80.5% recommended starting complementary feeding as of six months, 36% of them using BLW, 24% followed traditional weaning, 3.3% bottle feeding and the remaining 36% did not indicate. Eighty-three percent recommended chewing as soon as the child showed interest.

Both health professionals and parents recommend BLW and consider it helps promote the developmental milestones of the baby. Providing nurses with an adequate number of resources to guide parents on complementary feeding will continue to improve childcare.